


Grace Is So Rare

by leiascully



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), The X-Files
Genre: Crossover, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-04
Updated: 2008-11-04
Packaged: 2017-10-03 01:58:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loneliness isn't enough at the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grace Is So Rare

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Many thanks to [**coffeesuperhero**](http://coffeesuperhero.livejournal.com/) for the projection idea, and for demanding that I write this at all. Title inspired by Fink's "Pretty Little Thing". Utterly utterly gratuitous but very pretty to think about, no?  
> Disclaimer: _Battlestar Galactica_ and all related characters belongs to Ronald Moore, NBC Universal, Sci-Fi Channel, and Sky One. _The X-Files_ and all related characters belongs to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Network. No infringement is intended and no profit is made from this.

Scully woke up in an opera house. "Woke up" wasn't a precise expression of the situation, but the transition had been so sudden and the place was so dream-like that she couldn't put together better words. She touched the small of her back, missing the familiar shape of her gun pressed against her tailbone, and scanned the room. The carpet was lush underfoot, muffling her steps. Everything was red and gold and cream, opulent, the sort of place she'd become unaccustomed to living her spare life in the basement.

"Hello," someone said, and Scully whirled, stifling the impulse to reach for her gun. It was a woman, sitting on a gilded couch with thick crimson upholstery, her hands resting on her knee. She had an equanimity about her, the sort of poise that made Scully feel irritable and rough-edged, ready to pull out her badge, at the same time that she wanted to kneel before the woman and understand some of that grace. "Forgive my phrasing, but do you come here often?"

"Who are you?" Scully said. "Where am I?"

"My name is Laura," said the woman. Her voice was as rich as the decor, velvety and warm. "As for where we are, well," she spread her hands, palm up, "I think that's a more difficult question. I'm not certain that we're anywhere."

"We have to be somewhere," Scully said. This was worse than talking to Mulder. "We can't be nowhere."

"I believe," Laura said with a slow precision, "that this is the opera house from the City of the Gods on Kobol, or rather, I believe that this is a projection of that place. Not quite a dream, not quite real, but more physical than metaphysical by a small margin." She smiled at her own play on words.

"Do _you_ come here often?" Scully demanded, feeling unbalanced without the weight of her weapon.

"From time to time," Laura said. "Not often enough to determine whether it's a refuge or a testing ground." She touched the cushion next to her. "Would you like to sit down?"

"I'm a little on edge," Scully said.

"As you like," Laura said mildly. "I don't think there's any danger here. I'm not certain that there can be. It does, after all, seem to be all in our heads."

"Are you projecting me or am I projecting you?"

Laura lifted a shoulder in a graceful little shrug. "I'm really more of a politician than a psychologist, I'm afraid."

"Right." Scully paced, her heels sinking into the carpet. Laura watched her quietly.

"I do believe we are here to learn something, if that helps," she said after a moment.

Scully crossed her arms. "And what would that be?" She felt hostile, and bad about that, but Mulder wasn't here: she couldn't play good cop all by herself.

"I don't know about you," Laura said, and hesitated. "For me, it seems to be love. Are you...are you lonely, Ms....well, I don't know your name."

"Scully," said Scully automatically and then caught herself. She didn't want to give her last name to this stranger. "Dana. Call me Dana."

"Are you lonely, Dana?"

Scully nearly snapped at the woman. What was it about people she'd never seen before who wanted to get into her head? She didn't like to think of herself as such an easy mark, but here was another stranger, furrowing about in her mind, questioning her motivations. She realized Laura was still waiting for a response. She stopped pacing and turned to face the couch. Laura was sitting there, perfectly balanced and expectant. Scully's anger deflated, though she still felt rough and abrupt. She was here for a reason. Everything happened for a reason.

"Yeah," she said slowly. She licked her lips. "Yeah, I guess I am lonely."

Laura's face flickered into a tentative smile that grew in warmth as she looked at Scully. "Will you sit with me?"

Scully paused a moment longer and then surrendered and settled herself on the couch. The vision or projection or whatever the hell it was didn't seem likely to let go of her anytime soon. If what Laura said was correct, then they each, or both, had something to work through before they got to go home. Love. She snorted.

"Is something funny?" Laura asked, smiling and looking inquisitively at Scully.

"Oh," said Scully. "It's just that love isn't something I think about. I always seem to be busy saving the world."

Laura's smile dipped at one end as if humor had overbalanced it. "Tell me about it," she said, and laughed. The sound of it was light and bright in the room, and against all reason, Scully relaxed, chuckling a little. She leaned back into the cushions - the couch seemed more comfortable than any of her furniture, but that was the benefit of it all being in her head, she supposed - and really looked at Laura for the first time. She was an older woman, but not much older, probably early fifties, and the skin around her eyes crinkled prettily when she laughed. Her hair had curl and bounce like Melissa's, the sort of hair Scully had always envied. She was beautiful in her dignity. Laura sat very straight on the cushions, very centered, but it didn't seem forced. She just seemed to have found a point of balance, so that her graceful hands could lie still on her knee without fussing with the fabric of her skirt or twisting together.

"What is it that you do?" she asked calmly. "If I may ask, but then again, it isn't as if there's any weather to talk about."

There was an openness and a sympathy about her that loosened Scully's tongue. She had never shared an hallucination with anyone but Mulder, and then they'd been under the influence of the psychotropic spore. At least Laura wasn't writing about her or asking about her hair color or channeling her father. It was another moment to move through, and if she had something to learn, perhaps this woman was a teacher.

"I'm...I'm a law enforcement agent," Scully said. "My partner and I have been embroiled in revealing this conspiracy for so long and it just seems to be his whole life, and it just isn't mine. Well, it is. But it isn't the life I want. And he can't let it go. I feel like I just can't follow him anymore."

"It's difficult," said Laura. "Have you told him?"

"He just gets frustrated." Scully sighed. "I can't leave and I can't stay."

Laura pursed her lips a bit and nodded. "I imagine I understand. The men in my life have very strong ideas about protocol and secrecy and proper function and sometimes it just infuriates me. There isn't enough time for all of the manuvering we do." She breathed in deeply and looked around. "You know, I love this place. I used to fear it, but now I almost look forward to coming here. In a way, it's a respite. I spend all day trying to be good and true and right and strong and everything seems so bleak and confrontational, and then I come here, and I remember that mortality has its own beauty. There are things that are more important than being right. This place is beautiful even if the people who built it were flawed, and the people who destroyed it."

Scully let her head drift back on the headrest. "Somebody had an excellent eye and a very large budget."

Laura pulled up her feet and tucked them under her skirt, wrapping her arms around her knees. "Sad to think that none of it exists anymore."

"A good reminder to make the most of the time we have, I guess," said Scully idly. "Build an opera house."

"Build a relationship," said Laura, as if she were talking to herself.

"Yeah," said Scully, staring at the ceiling. "It's peaceful here." Something seemed to be expanding in her, as if a light had been kindled at the base of her throat.

"It is," Laura said. "But you can't stay here forever."

"I think I've been here before," Scully said, "but I can't remember how to leave. It's hard to want to leave. I feel like my head is clear for the first time in years."

"We can't stay," Laura said. "All dreams dissolve."

It did not seem at all strange, when she turned her face to look at Laura, to find Laura's hand tentatively cupping her cheek.

"Build love," Laura said, her voice soft and low.

Scully licked her lips. "Loneliness is safer."

"It isn't enough," said Laura. "Not at the end of the world."

"No," said Scully, and pushed herself up on one elbow, until her lips were close to Laura's. She couldn't explain it to herself; it felt right. It felt daring. It felt comfortable. She could feel Laura's breath on her mouth. Laura wasn't drawing away. Scully waited, breathing the electric air, her mouth ghosting over Laura's.

"Well," said Laura, her amusement vibrating through Scully's lips, "are you going to kiss me?"

"Build love," said Scully, "leave the opera house." Her last word was muffled against Laura's mouth: Laura's open, searching, welcoming mouth. Laura's arms were suddenly around her, bracing them both up so that Scully could guide them both down to the cushions without knocking their heads against the gilded wood of the armrest. Laura's breasts were pressed against her chest and their legs twined together, and a shimmer of hot joy rose up in Scully. She slid her hands down Laura's back, the fabric bunching under her fingers, trying to feel the ridges of Laura's ribs. Laura chuckled and kissed across Scully's cheekbone to lip at her ear. Scully shivered and her fingers tightened on Laura's ass.

It might have been a dream, but it felt real. The lace edge of Laura's top prickled at Scully's fingers. As Laura undid each of Scully's buttons, her fingernails scraped across the plastic. When skin finally touched skin, Scully gasped. It was as if she could feel each tiny hair prickling, each scar and flaw in Laura's skin, and it was something to celebrate. They were flawed. They were whole. They were together. They could overcome loneliness and separation and the need to hold themselves apart. Scully weighed Laura's breasts in her hands and slid down to kiss them. Laura sniffled and clutched at Scully's shoulder.

"No, nothing," she said, when Scully craned her head inquisitively. "I'd just forgotten what it was like, to stop worrying." She eased down beside Scully, her face buried against Scully's shoulder, and Scully kissed her cheek and forehead, a little uncertain, but all the more determined to soothe away the sadness. After a moment Laura looked up, her eyes glistening, and her eyes narrowed affectionately as she smiled. She stroked Scully's breasts and down her stomach, all the way to the crease of Scully's thighs, and then with a little twist of her fingers, she pushed in. Scully moaned, a sharp surprised sound, and clutched at Laura's hip, slipping her other hand down and down until she could dip her fingers into the wet heat of Laura's folds. Their wrists rubbed together and it was awkward but god, the sense of connection, the sheer physical joy of being _touched_ that way brought tears to Scully's eyes too.

She whispered against Laura's neck, not sure what she was saying. Laura was talking too, saying something that sounded old-fashioned and poetic, like scripture, but no scripture Scully had ever heard. She touched Laura everywhere she could and every way she could just to hear the change in the sounds that Laura made and discover all the secrets of Laura's body. It began to sound like a song, an aria filling the opera house, as the rising pitches of their gasps and moans turned into harmonies. Scully was rising on a crescendo of pleasure; she could feel Laura's body trembling against hers.

"Oh gods," Laura said, her body clenching around Scully's hand and her lips hot at Scully's temple. "Oh gods." She pressed her fingers hard up against just the right spot and Scully was free from the bounds of her skin. She was the perfect high note flung to the rafters, a pure expression of joy. She was the song of the world's beginning. Her descent back into herself was slow and pleasant, as if she were drifting back into her body. Her well-loved, well-pleased body, which was curled against Laura's own, their sweat bridging the miniscule gap between them.

"When I was ill," said Laura, her arm draped over the edge of the couch, "I thought I would never have this again. It's so difficult to touch people. I'm a politician, I spend all day reaching out to the people, but I never touch them."

"When I was ill," Scully said, tucking her fingers under Laura's thigh, "I wrote letters. I kept a journal. I couldn't even remember this. It was like being dead already."

"Now look what we've accomplished," Laura said, her hair tumbling over Scully's shoulder. "Built an opera house. Sung an opera."

"It doesn't make me want to leave," Scully said. "Our learning is our undoing."

Laura smoothed the backs of her fingers down Scully's cheek. "And so we go to be undone. It isn't what we did that brought this temple down. Go and build a haven of your own, in your world."

"Sometimes I think Earth has no havens," Scully said, and sighed, and missed Laura's flinch for shifting to hold her closer.

Scully woke up still hearing music.


End file.
